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Start Mapping With Urban Terror Map Maker Rate Topic: ***** 1 Votes

#1 User is offline   Shminkyboy Icon

  •   former FS member   
    Mapper
  • Account: shminkyboy
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  • Joined: 31-July 09
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Posted 11 July 2007 - 02:07 AM

This is a repost of a gift given to the Urban Terror mapping community by A Wily Duck, I figured it would be a good idea to get this info stickied or something before it gets lost. Thanks Wily! -ShminkyBoy

File Download courtesy of SNT, University Twente

http://ftp.snt.utwen.../maps/mapmaker/


Ok so where to begin!

First, I'm really glad this project got so far in such a short amount of time. If you grabbed version 01, you'll see the monumental jump to version 02. Throughout v2, I continued to add and hone EVERYTHING. If something started to stick out as difficult/ineffective to me, I threw some attention at the issue until I flattened it out acceptably. Technically v2 was planned for a full release at beta04, but I ended up with a beta10.

In creating betas, I did the smart thing - every time I stopped work or hit some sort of milestone, I copied the mapmaker directory, froze the copy directory, rar'd it, Work then continued... this actually helped a lot, there was a couple times I had to step backwards because I ran into some barrier that needed to be stepped around, requiring the last beta copy.

The look of the html pages evolved quite a lot too. For a while there were no textured backgrounds, nor page graphics. That was added towards the end when I had a little extra time to make it more purdy. I think it was certainly worth the effort for ascetics sake. More on the graphics in a minute.

The real rockstar here is the batch script for installations. I spent probably 2-3 days working solely on perfecting it's ability to ensure you're where you need to be in the directory structure, while staying linear and straightforward to the user. Behind the scenes, I think the script calls itself at least 3 times, i.e. restarts with new information to pass itself. I spent a lot of time learning the nuances of windows batch scripting, it's capabilities, and a few tricks to make it do what I wanted. In the end, it lines you up with all the configs, auto starts all the application installs, is ready to clear the version 01 mess i made, copies a bunch of files around for you, etc etc. Me and this script spent a lot of quality time together for what ends up as a fairly quick run-through by the end user - as it should be.

Next, producing and modifying the tutorial content took a while. I grabbed everything from v1 and parsed through it. Lots of editing to sectionalize the subject matter. For a v3, I see there's still work to be done. There's inline links which bring forward files that would otherwise be folklore. Example, at the appropriate time I have the shaderlist.txt file linked to be looked over, then within that file there's a whole explanation as to what's going on inside. I tried to maintain this trend of creating useful and practical diversions to understand the content better.

There's the content. Hm, what's useful, what's necessary, what is someone going to have to find...? Many answers spawned an included resource. I didn't want people to have to go find a download or download and save somewhere, or whatever easy mistakes which could be made that would throw an unexpected wrench in the machine. Instead I choose the big file size for convenience, because reducing frustration is the key. The extra 5 minutes of download is worth it.

The included development map: ut4_koth_dev. This is the only map source copy of koth - I lost the final in a harddrive crash. Figured hey, there's enough here to give someone a small world to work in, complete with a bunch of basic necessities. Best of all, koth is a simple map and has had pub play so people should have a general idea of what the map is about. I never liked the water, so I made some shader modifications which turned out excellent, did a little texture/brush/entity/lighting work... spruced up the map for the development kit. One of the tedious things was updating it for urt4 - I had to rename pretty much everything, collect all the source files/info/etc and rebuild it appropriately for urt4.

The graphics. ooo this was the fun one. I dedicated a whole day to nothing but graphics. For the background images, i wanted non-intrusive looks with color influences on the section/subject. That urban terror background used in a couple boxes? Couple hours burned. Insuring best texture and color qualities of the generics? Probably a couple hours. Each single large graphic per page? Anywhere from an hour to a couple hours each. The funny thing is, the crate on the last page took the longest. Yes I put probably up to 3 hours into that crate face. The original was a texture included in the urt4 .pk3 file. Each image I wanted to best represent the subject matter at hand. A lot of creative thought went just into the graphics.

Another note on the tutorials. Being able to have the batch file set everything up to the point that when you run gtkradiant for the first time, EVERYTHING is configured, AND it successfully loads a fully functional map with all the development fixins sitting right there, ready to go, was not easy. That was a necessary goal of mine to allow the user to hit the ground running. BAM here's your editor, map, now let's talk about how to interact with it. It is a wonder on how many great, fun maps we never saw because getting to that point in the past could have taken months to understand and get in place.

Unfortunately, as much work that was put into it, there appears to be a few bugs in the release. A couple links in the tutorial didn't end up linked correctly. Some of the explanations could be reworded a bit more clearly. I'd like to link to external tutorials in each subject when possible. GtkRadiant is not the best tool to build maps in, but it's free and that's what I know how to use so that's what I know how to teach. I'd like a better installer than batch files, but I'm not a windows scripter. If I could get the user to install ActiveState Perl, we'd be in business. Pfft, visual basic isn't that hard, I just don't want to pick it up right now.

I hope the mapmaker sets the seeds for future 3rd party development in Urban Terror. I have my own opinions about the games' development, but that does not change the fact I want you to try and succeed at making your own map. The mapping community is small here but still exists, so if you've wanted to try your hand at making a map, here's your starter kit, get involved. It's a lot of fun to see your imagination come to life.

FSK405 wily duck
:V

Addendum
I've noticed a couple anomalies in the install... first, if you had radiant 1.4 already installed, and you wish to use the new settings, uninstall the existing AND delete c:program filesgtkradiant1.4

Second, I should have been a little more specific about the gtkradiant install. Be sure to correctly specify where your quake3 directory is.

Third, upon startup for some reason gtkradiant would ask what mod to use. I correctly pick quake3/team arena modifications, then radiant loads. I have to close/exit radiant, and reload it to get the correct settings applied.

Fourth, the 3d window needs to be right-clicked, moused around, then right clicked again to fire it off. I have no idea why. The z-window on the right is stretched too far out on this machine upon install, just size it to the right so you can barely see the contents.

...

One more thing (this is getting worthy of a bug fix patch). Add "common" to your shaderlist.txt file right under ut4_koth_dev.

I'm going to begin adding any updates from here out to the digital amusement forums specified in the mapmaker readme file.

http://forums.digita...topic.php?t=734


File Download courtesy of SNT, University Twente

http://ftp.snt.utwen.../maps/mapmaker/

#2 User is offline   D33P_FRI3D|poop (old) Icon

  • Joined: 11-February 07
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  • Locationeither at my pc or my gravitational device o(^_^)o

Posted 11 July 2007 - 01:07 PM

iam gonna try this mapping stuff out so plz can someone tell me exaclty wut i will need to make some maps i got the mapmaker gonna go smoke a bong and try to figure it out :evil: :-D anyhelp very much appreciated

#3 User is offline   Wily Duck Icon

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Posted 11 July 2007 - 06:23 PM

Most appreciated Shminkyboy...

What you will need? Download the mapmaker file, install, read the readme. It'll walk you through the rest.

After that, it's only a matter of patience and tinkering.

I will add - on my machine, AMD X2 4400 dual core, I must set the affinity to one processor, otherwise gtkradiant becomes very unstable. [task manager] -> [processes] -> right click gtkradiant -> [set affinity] -> deselect CPU 0

#4 User is offline   Shminkyboy Icon

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 05:07 AM

No, you just saved a potential mapper hours of work just in getting going by putting this together.

Your hard work and effort on this is much appreciated man, thanks =)

#5 User is offline   D33P_FRI3D|poop (old) Icon

  • Joined: 11-February 07
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  • Locationeither at my pc or my gravitational device o(^_^)o

Posted 12 July 2007 - 07:02 PM

wut this shit pwns bro u rox but r the shaders suposed to say shader not found or shader missing i only got the shaders for the gothic crap :-D

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#6 User is offline   žalost (old) Icon

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Posted 12 July 2007 - 07:14 PM

Quote

wut this crap pwns bro u rox but r the shaders suposed to say shader not found or shader missing i only got the shaders for the gothic crap :-D


take gothic_* and base_* directories that arent used out of your shaderlist.txt under yur scripts folder ;)

those texture directories were for building q3 maps

#7 User is offline   RahX (old) Icon

  • Joined: 26-March 07
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  • LocationPaducah KY

Posted 13 July 2007 - 02:05 AM

Cool I used to have fun making duke nukem maps, I know this is probably infinitely harder but I'm giving it a to.

#8 User is offline   |it|XXINIXX (old) Icon

  • Joined: 21-June 04
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  • LocationThe Netherlands

Posted 15 July 2007 - 07:04 PM

goddamn im such a noob
i can not install this.. isnt there an easy .exe to just install it while i keep pressing continue >_<

#9 User is offline   Nexu Icon

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Posted 06 August 2007 - 02:06 AM

Someone was looking for this file earlier. But since Fro-server has been shutdown. I have temporary uploaded a copy to:
http://89.106.68.26/...apmaker_v02.exe

So if someone could put up a copy of this excellent piece of work on their website ...  :-)

#10 User is offline   Woekele Icon

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Posted 06 August 2007 - 08:34 AM

I will when I get back to my own PC :)

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